


Smiles

by Bluewolf458



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-21
Updated: 2013-10-21
Packaged: 2017-12-30 02:14:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1012835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluewolf458/pseuds/Bluewolf458
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blair thinks about how many different kinds of smile there are</p>
            </blockquote>





	Smiles

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Sentinel Thursday

Blair was never quite sure where the thought came from - _There are so many different kinds of smile._

He sat back and considered it. Might it be possible to get a paper out of the theme?

There were closed-mouth smiles and open-mouthed ones that allowed the teeth to show. Anthropologists visiting remote tribes usually had to be careful not to show their teeth when they smiled. To some of those tribes, the difference between a smile and a threatening grimace was infinitesimal. Come to that, how did an open-mouthed smile ever manage to lose the threatening implication of 'I want to bite you!' and come to be regarded as friendly?

Such a simple response to a situationn - to many situations... and it said so many things.

Insincere. The smile that didn't reach the eyes at all, that was merely a meaningless curve of the lips, that said, 'I don't know you and I don't want to know you, but hey, I'm polite.'

Calculating. The unfriendly smile that said, 'I wonder what I can con out into giving me?' And its first cousin, that said, 'I think you wronged me. How can I get revenge?'

Shy. The half-smile that said, 'Hello, I like you, but I don't know you, and I'm afraid...'

Encouraging. The friendly smile that said, 'Come on, you can do this, you know you can!'

Enthusiastic. The smile that said, 'We did it!' (Whatever 'it' was.)

Amused. The smile that stopped just short of laughing, that said, 'That's quite funny.'

Friendly. The smile that said, 'I like you. I'd like to spend time with you.'

Affectionate. The smile that said, 'I _really_ like you, I'd like to know you better.'

Caring. The smile that said, 'You can depend on me.'

Loving. Well, that one spoke for itself. It simply said, 'I love you.'

And those were just the ones that entered his mind without his concentrating on the subject.

He scribbled down the adjectives in the small notebook he carried for the times when such random thoughts surfaced. He might manage a paper, he might not - but the theme could be good for a class discussion, see how many different 'smiles' one of his classes came up with. Anthropologists were students who studied _people_ , after all, and 'people' didn't necessarily mean remote tribes. It would be a good subject to remind a class that people living in the First World were worth studying too. He smiled calculatingly, and realized that he'd found another, slightly more friendly cousin, of 'con' and 'revenge' - the smile that said, 'Make my students think!'


End file.
